The increasing complexity of the modern world, and the concomitant explosion in the amount of information available to describe that world, has placed competing demands on people. There is more subject matter that people find necessary or desirable to master or, at least, be familiar with. At the same time, there is less time to spend delving into any particular subject. Too, there is a much larger universe of information from which the desired information must be extracted. Trying to get just an overview of a large body of information can be overwhelming, and attempting to find specific material within the body of information can be like searching for a needle in a haystack.
Thus, there is a continuing and growing need for methods and systems for enabling bodies of information to be accessed and reviewed in a useful manner, e.g., a manner that allows the scope and content of available information to be quickly ascertained and that enables quick access to information of particular interest. In particular, there is a need for systems and methods of organizing, categorizing and relating the various segments of a large body of information to facilitate the access and review of the body of information. For example, while some previous systems for enabling observation of a large body of information enable identification of one or more segments of information that are related to a specified segment of information, these systems do not automatically display such related segments of information. Moreover, the previous systems either require that related segments have previously been determined or, at least, that the segments have been categorized according to subject matter content so that whether two segments are related can readily be determined. Further, previous systems have not enabled determination of relatedness between segments of information represented by different types of data, e.g., such systems cannot determine whether a segment represented by audiovisual data is related to a segment represented by text data.
There is also a need for systems and methods for enabling observation of a body of information that are user-friendly, e.g., that can be used with little training, that are convenient to use, that enable information to be quickly and easily accessed, and that present the information in an accessible format via a high quality display medium. It would also be desirable for such systems and methods to be adapted for use with bodies of information represented by different types of data (i.e., audio data, video data, text data or some combination of the three). It would further be desirable for such systems and methods to be adapted for use with bodies of information represented by data acquired from a wide variety of media (e.g., print media such as newspapers or magazines, television and radio broadcasts, online computer information services and pre-recorded audiovisual programs, to name a few). Previous systems and methods for accessing and reviewing a body of information are deficient in one or more of these respects.
For example, many previous systems are computer-based. Typically, the display device of these systems (e.g., conventional computer display monitor) does not provide a high quality display of time-varying audiovisual information (such as produced by a television, for example). On the other hand, display devices that do display such information well (e.g., televisions), typically do not provide a high quality display of text information (such as produced by a computer display monitor). A system that can provide a high quality display of both types of information is needed.
Additionally, previous systems for reviewing a body of information are not as flexible or convenient to use as is desirable. For example, in many such systems (e.g., computers), the mechanism for controlling the operation of the system is physically coupled to the display device of the system. Therefore, the system can not be operated remotely, thus constraining the user's freedom of movement while operating the system. Additionally, even in those systems where remote operation is possible (e.g., remotely controlled televisions), the remote control device often does not have a user interface that is as readily accessible as desired (as many consumer electronics users can testify, the keypads of many remote control devices are an impenetrable array of cryptic control keys, often requiring non-intuitive key combinations to effect particular control instructions) or the remote control device does not contain a rich set of control features. Moreover, the remote control devices used with previous systems do not have the capability of themselves displaying a part of the body of information.
Further, previous systems often do not enable real-time acquisition and review of some or all of the body of information. For example, many computer-based systems acquire and store data representing a body of information. The stored data can then be accessed to enable display of segments of the body of information. However, insofar as previous systems for observing a body of information allow real-time acquisition and review of the body of information, these systems generally do not analyze the data to enable the data to be organized, categorized and related so that, for example, segments of the body of information can be related to other segments for which data is acquired in the future or for which data has previously been acquired. Moreover, such systems do not enable the real-time display of some or all of a body of information while also displaying related information in response to the real-time display.
Thus, there is a need for improved systems and methods for enabling observation of a body of information and, in particular, such systems and methods that address the above-identified inadequacies in previous systems and methods for enabling observation of a body of information.